Site #7: Longview, Texas



The final tour stop before the team heads back to Springfield took us 280 miles west of Jackson into East Texas.  Longview, another mid-sized American town, grew up around the oil boom.  It is home to 78,000 people, three school districts, and two very different sides of the city.  While the north side of town is mostly prosperous, South Longview is much more impoverished.  Very few businesses operate in an area with a much denser populations.  Fewer grocery stores and an abundance of pay-day lenders mark the area.  70% of the students in the Longview School District receive free or reduced lunch.  Residents struggle to find decent paying jobs with minimal education.  When a local brewery relocated around ten years ago, the city lost a considerable amount of tax revenue. 

In light of these issues, the city of Longview, through a program called Partners in Prevention, took on the Circles initiative in 2008.  They have graduated four Getting Ahead classes to this point and will soon be matching their most recent class with allies.  Their Circle Leaders are working class citizens who have found a community of support and strength in the initiative led by Holly Fuller and Lyndell McAllister.  Partners in Prevention also has a unique Circles community that they forged in partnership with Longview.  15 city employees were referred and have been active participants in their own Getting Ahead class and Circles community.  Fuller and McAllister are pleased with the progress being made by their Circle Leaders and the growth of the Allies who are partnered with them.  Together they are looking for ways to tackle the systemic issues that people in poverty need to overcome in Longview.  These obstacles look overwhelming at times, but with the support of the city government and the camaraderie they have found with one another, this Circles community has found hope. 

More Footage from Pensacola, FL!

Here is a short video from our time in Pensacola, FL.  Thank you to everyone we met and took the time to talk and interview with us. 

Jackson Wrap-up

Here are our concluding thoughts from our visit to Jackson, Mississippi.  Later today we will have a post or two from Longview, Texas.  

Site #6: Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson was the penultimate stop on the road trip portion of our Circles tour.  The capital of Mississippi was by far the largest city we have visited, with over 500,000 people living in the metro area.  While most sites have been in smaller cities or rural counties, Jackson had a true urban feel to it.  The further one travels from a busy, bustling downtown, the more prevalent the rent-to-own retailers and check-cashing predatory lenders become.  “Juice stores” mark the lower-income areas, where cigarettes and liquor can be bought on tab and taken out of the paycheck which is cashed on site.  Many businesses are surrounded by barbed wire fences.  The better paying jobs are located in the suburbs beyond the reach of public transportation and therefore inaccessible to city residents without reliable vehicles.

It is in this environment that Voice of Calvary Ministries took root in 1975.  VOCM has been dedicated to rebuilding the community by rebuilding the lives of its individuals.  Because of their commitment to community development and a refusal to provide services that simply treat symptoms of poverty, VOCM adopted the Circles initiative in 2010.  They are preparing to graduate their second Getting Ahead class at the end of May.  Cynthia Hobbs, the Circles Coordinator at Voice of Calvary, believes the most difficult challenge ahead of their community is changing the mindset regarding poverty.  Among many families in Mississippi, poverty extends all the way back to slavery.  This reality creates an enormous gulf between those who live outside of poverty and those who have never known anything else.  Additionally, Jackson deals with the separation existing from racial tensions not uncommon in southern cities.

Despite these obstacles, Hobbs believes that her Circle Leaders have the ability to reach their goals and move out of poverty.  Circles has connected them with allies who are bankers, nurses, professors, and social service providers respectively.  Because of Voice of Calvary Ministries’ long-standing partnerships in the community, Circle Leaders have access to resources that were previously unknown to them.  Although the initiative is fairly young, the staff is encouraged with what they are seeing and hoping the evidence from their initiative will help change the mindset of a struggling city.

More footage from Baldwin!

Here is a short video that captures some of the footage from Baldwin, LA.   

Baldwin Wrap-Up

Check out our thoughts from our stop in Baldwin, LA. 

Site #5: Baldwin, Louisiana

We are off the beach and into the swamp!  The Faces of Circles Tour has moved along to Baldwin, Louisiana in St. Mary’s Parish.  The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has a depot in Baldwin that ships health kits to places affected by disaster or extreme poverty all over the world.  Since the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the UMCOR Sager Brown Campus has been working in Southern Louisiana to alleviate poverty.  A small compound on the bayou houses volunteers from all over the country that come to package relief kits internationally and offer a hand locally. 

The task is enormous in St. Mary’s Parish.  In the various towns making up the community the poverty rate starts at 23%.  30% of Charenton residents, which is home to a Native American Reservation, live below the poverty line.  Trailer parks surround the sugar cane fields and casinos, which are a major source of low-wage employment.  Those who do well own the cane fields, work on off-shore oil rigs, or teach.  But teaching jobs are limited, drilling work keeps men out of the community, and those who own the cane fields have a vested interest in keeping better jobs out of the parish, which would force them to raise their pay to the field workers.  Those who do find work in the fields are only seasonally employed.  When a new grocer opened in the community, there were 400 applicants for 28 positions. 

In light of all of this, UMCOR decided relief from poverty was not enough and took on the Circles model last fall.  Still a fledgling campaign, they will graduate their first class of Getting Ahead members at the end of this month.  Richard LeGrier, the Louisiana Circles Coordinator, has been working in the community to find support for his soon-to-be-graduates.  Tuesday evening he hosted a promotional meeting for the initiative which the mayors of Baldwin and neighboring Franklin attended.  As Circles looks to gain traction in the swamp, there is a community that is optimistic it can provide some real change.